Another Fresh Take From the Tampa Bay Times

[Corsair1963]

I live in Tampa and talk about embarrassing......



Yet, it's interesting that the author didn't mention the praise that the F-35 has received from a number of leading figures in the state. Including the states Governor (Rick Scott) and both Senators. (Marco Rubio and Bill Nelson) Nor, the fact that over the last couple of years. That same leadership of both political parties. Are trying to acquire F-35's for the Florida ANG in Jacksonville......


As I always say, it's not what they tell you, but what they don't?

I lived in Tampa for the first eighteen years of my life, and escaped to Missouri as soon as I was able! I still wind up down there sometimes to visit family.

Daniel Ruth is a name I haven't heard in a long time - I was better off for it! The guy is a left-wing hack with absolutely no grasp of technical subjects. Him shooting his mouth off on the F-35 is disappointing but not surprising. It's about representative of the competence or lack there of I've come to expect from mass-market news media

Funny, I love the Tampa Bay Area and wouldn't live anywhere else......(even with the Tampa Bay Times and Mr. Ruth)

[XanderCrews]

I live in Tampa and talk about embarrassing......



Yet, it's interesting that the author didn't mention the praise that the F-35 has received from a number of leading figures in the state. Including the states Governor (Rick Scott) and both Senators. (Marco Rubio and Bill Nelson) Nor, the fact that over the last couple of years. That same leadership of both political parties. Are trying to acquire F-35's for the Florida ANG in Jacksonville......


As I always say, it's not what they tell you, but what they don't?

Rubio nearly jumped out of his Italian shoes when we walked him around the jet back in the day. This type of article is why the news media is struggling. They take dated, controversial information and push it to the mob which has always been fickle. Loved the fact that the first response to me was to "Google the designer of the F-16 and see what he said." Really? Sprey? Amazing people ever listened to him much less to this day.

I know

Harry Hilacker designed the F-16. Pierre sprey never worked for an aircraft corporation.

[steve2267]

Not that Wikipedia is without error, but the Wikipedia page on good ol' Pierre stated that he had worked as an analyst for General Dynamics. It did not say he was an engineer, and it certainly did not credit him with being the F-16 designer... but his employment by GD was news to me. Can anyone categorically state whether or not Sprey was ever a GD employee (or even a contractor)?

I thought he was only a Pentagon defense analyst (statistician), as in, a civil servant employed or paid by Uncle Sam.

[SpudmanWP]

What wiki are you looking at?

His page says:

Sprey was born in Nice, France, and raised in New York.[4] He was educated at Yale, where he studied aeronautical engineering and French literature, and also at Cornell, where he studied mathematical statistics and operations research. He subsequently worked at Grumman Aircraft as a consulting statistician[1] on space and commercial transportation projects. From 1966 to 1970 he was a special assistant at the Office of the Secretary of Defense.[5] After 1971, Sprey left the US Department of Defense, but continued working as a consultant on military issues until 1986, when he became a record producer and founded the Mapleshade record label.[6]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Sprey

[steve2267]

What wiki was I looking at? That's a damn good question. Now I can't recall.

I do believe I read the sentence in my memory AFTER this thread about Tampa Bay started. I want to say Google lead me to a Wikipedia page where Sprey was mentioned. I recall reading that Sprey had worked for General Dynamics. It stuck in my memory because I had never read that before. I can't say it was from the Pierre Sprey page on Wikipedia to which you linked, or another page, perhaps a YF-17, YF-16, F-16, or F-18 page? But I went to those pages and text searched "Pierre Sprey" and found nothing.

My only other thought is if that sentence was edited out by someone else? Sorry, but I didn't bookmark the page because I generally do not bother to bookmark anything related to Pierre Sprey.

[rheonomic]

Pretty sure he was never at GD.

[steve2267]

I agree. I did a double take when I read it. I should have made a screenshot and bookmarked the page to follow up later. I've tried to revisit all my recent pages looking for that sentence, all to no avail.